Smartphone Security Checklist: Why Password is Not Enough

This is a guest post by Adam Ferraresi lives in Dallas, Texas, has a successful career in web development and is trusted writer of wefollowtech.com. He is twenty three years old, and when he’s not concocting some new interesting articles, he loves playing basketball and cooking for his friends.

For some time now, people have been more and more dependable on technology and in modern day and age we practically live and breathe through our devices. Our jobs as well as our private lives rely heavily upon the technology we can’t live without anymore, and when something bad happens to our phone, our tablet of laptop, we feel like a part of our life is missing.

Unfortunately, our over-attachment to technology has made us more vulnerable than ever to all forms of identity theft, as well as security and privacy breaches. We depend on technology that is becoming our life, but we don’t put enough effort into protecting all the information that we have stored in our devices, and with every passing day, it is becoming more and more of a problem.

With any device that we have, especially with our smartphones, we should practice caution and treat them as a confidential document, because that’s what it is. Once someone gets a hold of your phone, they can in a heartbeat know pretty much all there is to know about you, which is why you should do all in your power to protect it. Though having a password on your phone is important, it certainly shouldn’t be the only thing standing between your sensitive information and cyber criminals.

First thing to do is enable encryption and fingerprint scanner if you smartphone has it, this enables the second most important security measure; having password/passcode to unlock.

With that said, we’ll first talk about how you should set up and customize your password, after which we’ll also tell you more about what you can do to make your smartphone as secure as humanly possible.

When setting up your password, you should take into account a few factors that could in the long run make or break your device’s security.

• Set up a strong password. This shouldn’t just your birthday or the name of a loved one, but it should have at least ten characters and contain both uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as numbers and if at all possible characters. If you are struggling with coming up with a good strong password, you can always turn to password generators, though you’ll have to remember those, which isn’t always easy. • Your password is your own! This is really important because too many people share their passwords like there’s no tomorrow. The truth is that you should keep your password to yourself just like you do with your credit card details. • Don’t use same password for your phone and other websites. This is one of the most often causes of privacy to security breaches, which can prove to be bad on many, many levels. Even though it might take some extra time to remember it, think of and remember different passwords for different accounts. • Don’t come back to your old passwords. When it comes to your password, you can apply the same rule as your exes, don’t come back to them. When password is cracked once, it can compromise your devices and your data at any point in time.

Now that we’ve covered what you should think about when coming up with your security password, we’ll move onto the checklist of steps that you can take, which will make your smartphone much more secure and your private information and content out of malicious hands.

Always Use The Latest Updates Of Your Operating System

Though the updates of your operating system can be a pain and a chore, it is necessary that you do it regularly. There’s a very good reasoning behind updates – they patch up all the security holes that existed in the previous OS versions. Unless you update your OS on time, your risk willingly letting in cybercriminals and malware through those holes and then you’ve got no one else to blame but yourself for any security issue that might come up.

Keep Your Smartphone To Yourself

This might sound paranoid to you, but you would be unpleasantly surprised to find out the hard way that someone in your immediate circle of friends or colleagues set up a virus or any other form of security threat to your phone. Just like we mentioned in the beginning, your smartphone is like your identification document that can be used against you in an infinite number of ways. This is why you should, when in public, always keep your phone close to you, just in case. Better safe than sorry.

Whenever Possible, Avoid Public Networks

Public Wi-Fi or any other form of public network is the nesting place of all kinds of malware and privacy threats that can damage, even destroy your device permanently. You should particularly avoid any form of shopping through public network, because then you’re practically giving the hackers and virus programs what they need, and on a silver platter.

We’re not suggesting avoiding public like the plague, but know what you’re dealing with. There are numerous ways to protect yourself when on a public Wi-Fi, including good antivirus programs, proxies and virtual private networks, so there are some precautions you can take that will allow you to browse the internet freely, even when connected to a public network.

Get A Good Antivirus For Your Smartphone

We really can’t stress enough just how much of a difference this can make. Having a good antimalware protection remains one of the most important pillars of your smartphone’s protection. Even if you’re not willing to pay for an antivirus program, there are some great free options that you can choose from that have been tested and proven to be trustworthy. Make sure to choose an antivirus program that has got great reviews and a lot of them and double check on features it offers to see if they coincide with your needs.

Be Careful With Your Apps

This is another important fact that too many people simply don’t think about. Your apps are a big part of your phone’s system, which means that they can pose a significant threat to it as well. There are two aspects you should always consider before you download an application.

First of all, know that it comes from a source you can trust. This means that you should only download/buy apps from apps stores that have proven to be trustworthy in the past. Also, take special notion of free apps that are often offered in clickable ads, because not too many good apps come for free just like that, too often the price is your personal information.

Second, take a special look into what kind of access you’re granting to apps when you install them. We often don’t even look at what we’re agreeing with, but you should know which part of your data you’re exposing to any third party. We also wholeheartedly recommend disallowing automatic updates for your apps, as that leaves leeway for many form of malware to slip right through.

Taking your smartphone’s security seriously has become of dire need, seeing that every day cybercriminals find new ways to get to your information before you even realize it. You should at least try and give them as much resistance as you can muster.